


Woken Up

by rachealsAO3



Series: Human Journals AU [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Human journals AU, The Journals (Gravity Falls), but I swear it's just Okay, kind of original characters I guess? it's the journals, rating is for Stan cursing a lot, the relationship between Ford and the journals is implied to be Bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 18:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14939241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachealsAO3/pseuds/rachealsAO3
Summary: Books turning into kids didn't even make it into the top five weirdest things that had happened to Stan since he moved to Gravity Falls. (But it was still pretty fucking weird.)





	Woken Up

The basement was dimly lit by the lights and screens from the countless machines, Stan having turned off the fluorescent lights a few hours ago after they started to give him a headache. He held a flashlight in his mouth as he screwed around with the panel in front of him, trying to decipher the symbols- all meaningless to him- that were painted on the buttons.

He figured it was some sort of foreign alphabet or ancient hieroglyphics, but he had already tried to find any trace of it in Ford’s shit and down at the library. He hadn’t found anything. So now he was here, a flashlight in his mouth, crouched in front of Ford’s stupidest machine yet, using both hands to try pressing several buttons at the same time to try to get the damn thing to react to anything at all.

“ _Shit_ ,” he muttered as the flashlight fell. He picked it back up and tucked it in between his shoulder and his neck, bending his head to the side to keep it stable. “You’d think he’d just slap some power buttons on this thing, but _no_ , Ford can never build anything the _easy_ way.”

He sat back, moving the flashlight to his hands as he rested his back against the machine behind him. “All right,” he sighed. “You win, you bastard. I’m done with you. Done with you and your stupid fucking buttons.”

He started pulling himself to his feet, and that was when, having leaned to the side at just the right angle, he saw it.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he said, shuffling forward to stare into the small space between the machine with the weird buttons and the one next to it. On the side of the machine was a small button that had some sort of label above it. Stan couldn’t read it from where he was sitting, but he didn’t really care. He had spent a lot of his time in Gravity Falls trying to figure out the machines Ford had down in this lab, and the chance to not add this one to the list of impossible pieces of shit was a win that he needed.

He slid his hand through the small gap, just barely able to slide it through, and pushed the tiny button.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, behind him, there was a crash.

Stan jumped, quickly getting to his feet to look over the lab. At first glance, he didn’t see anything wrong. Then he spotted one of the metal cabinets that lined the other wall hanging open.

The one cabinet that Stan hadn’t been able to get open for 20 years.

He was on the other side of the room before he could even think about going over there, practically shoving his head inside of it.

It was empty, save for some cobwebs and dust, but Stan wasn’t too disappointed or surprised as he fell back onto his feet, sneezing. At least he knew what the damn button machine was for, now, and it was just like Ford to build something like that to open a _cabinet_.

He turned around, intending to walk back over to the desk, finish off the sandwich and the beer he’d brought down with him, and head upstairs to sleep. End the day on a positive note, after so many late nights of the stupid button machine.

Instead, he tripped.

“Ow, _fuck_ \- what the-“ He’d landed on his arm all wrong, and he held it to his chest as he twisted around to see what he’d tripped over. “I _swear_ -“

His heart stopped.

There, in the floor, was one of the journals.

Stan snatched it up. He stumbled to his feet, forgetting the pain in his arm. His heart picked back up at an incredible pace as he slammed the journal down on the desk. He threw open the compartment he kept Journal 1 in, taking it out and lying it beside the one he’d found.

He had two of them. He’d been looking for so long- _so long_ , and now he had two of them. He had Journal 1 and Journal-

“What the fuck?”

Stan blinked, and stared down at the journals sitting on the desk.

Journal 1 and _Journal 1_. He flipped the thing open, going through the pages, and, sure enough, it was the _same damn_ _book_.

“What the _fuck_?” Stan asked again, anger seeping into his voice. “You’ve got to be- really? Seriously, Ford? I swear to god, when I get you back, I’m gonna- I’m gonna _kill_ _you_ , poindexter.”

Stan snatched up the journal he’d found, and without thinking, he spread his hand out across the golden one on the cover as he started to pace.

“You had multiple copies of these sons a’ bitches? So what was all the drama even for? What was the fucking _fit_ over when I tried to burn the damn thing? We’ve gone through all of this for books that you had two of? Hell, I don’t know, maybe you had three! Or four! Do you know how hard this makes things? Of course you don’t, because you’re fucking gone, you’re not here, you might never be here again, and I’m stuck here trying to get you back- I know just what you’re thinking, probably all, ‘Aha, now I’ll never return!’ No, no, you’d say it in fucking Latin like a condescending prick because you think I still don’t know it. ‘ _Reditus_ -‘”

A strange thing happened, then.

The moment the Latin bullshit started spilling out of his mouth, the journal started to glow. Stan had only just thought about throwing the book as far as he could when he was blinded by the light that cut across the room, turning everything white. His hand seemed glued to the cover of the journal, but he might’ve just frozen. He wasn’t sure. Under his hands the journal felt like it was growing- it didn’t fit in his grip anymore, and it pushed against him. When the light finally faded and Stan could open his eyes, he didn’t see anything wrong.

And then he looked down.

His eyes met brown eyes- a boy, a tween, it looked like, with hair that was the same burgundy red as the journals, was standing in front of him, Stan’s hand pressed to his heart.

Stan yelled and threw himself back, the boy’s eyes widening as he did the same.

“Who the- what the-“ Stan stammered, leaning back against one of the machines. “There’s a kid- the book- how did it turn into- ?”

The kid looked around the lab, looked back at him, and then grabbed the beer bottle off of the desk, shattering it against the edge and advancing, holding his makeshift weapon out in front of him. “Who are you?”

Stan’s heart dropped, and he raised his hands up, palms facing out. “H- hey! Shouldn’t I be the one asking that? Where the hell did you come from?”

“What are you doing in this lab?” The kid took another step forward, his grip tightening on the broken bottle.

Stan took a deep breath. He reset. Tried to think. This was _Gravity Falls_ , weird things always happened here. This was just- just another weird thing. _Look at the situation. Look at the facts_.

This was just a kid. He was shaking all over like a chihuahua, and his voice had broken both times he had talked. His eyes darted around the room, probably looking for an escape route besides the one Stan was blocking, and he could easily slap the bottle out of his hand with a stance like that. He wasn’t a threat- just a kid.

A kid who had, just a minute ago, been a journal.

_Gravity fucking Falls._

“Who are you?” the kid asked again. This time he wrapped another hand around the bottle, stepping into Stan’s personal space.

“Listen, kid, put the bottle down,” Stan tried. “Calm down, I-“

“I asked you a _question_.”

“Why don’t you answer mine first? You know, as a favor, since you’ve got me at bottle-point and all.”

The snark seemed to get to the kid. He huffed, lowering the bottle a bit. “My name is Albert. Albert Pines. _Where_ is Ford?”

Stan’s heart crashed into his stomach.

 

* * *

 

Albert was freaking out a bit.

The lab was a mess- everything out of its place and strewn all over, clutter everywhere, and the desk was cleared of everything Ford usually kept there, replaced with what looked like mostly trash. Ford obviously hadn’t been there in a while.

And then there was this man- he was probably about 50? His hair was gray and his face had a few lines, and he looked strikingly similar to Ford. He was looking at Albert with something that suggested surprise. His eyes were wide, and he seemed to have gone a little pale. He opened his mouth and closed it again, and then he opened it and spoke.

“ _Pines_?” the man asked, choking on his words. “Albert _Pines_?”

“Yes,” Albert said. “ _Where_ is Ford?”

“Kid, he’s-“ the man hesitated, looking towards the window to the portal room. “He’s been gone for twenty years.”

Albert could have fainted. The bottle slipped out of his hands, and he didn’t hear the glass shatter, but he felt pieces of it hit his legs.

Twenty years.

They’d been left as journals for twenty years. Maybe even more. He had promised- only an hour, maybe two. It was just a test.

He had left them as journals for twenty years.

He _had_ to have had a reason. Something must have happened- maybe it wasn’t safe for him to turn them back. Maybe someone came after them. Maybe, maybe, _maybe_. There were endless possibilities.

Albert took a deep breath, fighting off the black that creeped in around the edges of his vision. He was not going to faint here with this stranger as his only company. He needed to think clearly, to think logically, to think about _everything_.

Ford was gone, according to this man. He seemed honest enough, so Albert would accept it for now. There was no sign of Cipher anywhere- it didn’t mean he wasn’t around, but it did mean that he wasn’t to be worried about for the moment. What else was there? He had been turned back, woken up, so what else did that mean?

_Nik and Isaac._

Albert’s heart skipped a beat. He turned back to the man. He needed more information- he needed to decide if he could trust this man or not, and he needed to decide _now_.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

“My name is Stanley Pines,” the man said. He looked back at Albert. “I’m Ford’s twin brother.”

Albert could have fainted, again. He managed to keep himself upright. “Ford- Ford didn’t mention having a brother.”

“Yeah, I guess he wouldn’t,” the man shrugged. “Listen, I- I live here now, and you- you’re welcome to stay- I mean, you _will_ stay, you’re a child and you’re family, apparently, and we have a lot to talk about, so-“

Albert made a decision. “We don’t have time for that. We have to find my brothers.”

Stanley’s voice jumped a few octaves. “ _Brothers_?”

Albert turned and looked around the lab. “Nikola and Isaac. Did Ford leave any maps out? We have to find them, they’ll have woken up, too.”

“You have brothers?”

Albert sighed. “Yes, that’s what I just said. Nikola is only a little younger than me, he’ll probably find his own way home, but Isaac is smaller- about six. Well, we assume, but it was hard to judge just how old we were- anyway, we have to find him. Where did you put Ford’s maps?”

Stanley seemed frozen for a moment, his eyes full of questions that Albert knew he wouldn’t be able to answer now. He had to focus on right now, on what needed to be done, on pushing everything else away.  

He might faint, if Stanley pushed him.

“Right,” Stanley eventually said, walking around the shards of the beer bottle and past Albert. “Right Your brothers should come first. Uh, I think I put all of his maps in here?” He opened one of the cabinets. It was empty. “No, wait, they’re in the closet.”

Albert frowned. That was _not_ where Ford had kept the maps.

“We looking for the one of Gravity Falls?”

“Yes. The one that has the different locations in the woods around here marked.”

Stanley carried the map over to the desk, pushing a sandwich out of the way so he could roll it out. Albert leaned over it, examining the spots in the woods around the cabin.

Ford had a few places circled, but Albert dismissed them as bad hiding spots- especially the Manotaurs’ caves, where any books would probably just be destroyed. There were a few other places that were marked in the sloppy handwriting Ford had slipped into after finding out the truth about Bill. The old well had a few question marks scribbled near it. Boyish Dan’s cabin had a tiny star drawn beside it.

“Before Ford-“ Albert cut himself off, biting his tongue. Before Ford what? Before he disappeared? Before he was _killed_? What had _happened_ to him? “Before Ford left, did he mention the journals? Possible hiding places?”

“He, uh- he asked me to hide one of ‘em,” the man shrugged, leaning over the map beside him. “Didn’t say anything about where the others were, though. Do you have any idea what any of this means?”

Albert didn’t recognize most of the symbols Ford had drawn. He huffed, trying to think of where Ford would have hidden them. His finger trailed the old, yellowed paper- would he have hidden one of them on the UFO? No, that was too dangerous. One of the gnome villages? No, the gnomes were too untrustworthy for that. Maybe the old bunker? No, Ford had abandoned that place along with the shape shifter.

Albert’s heart skipped a beat as he glanced over the church. Above it, Roman numerals had been written in a small, neat script.

III.

“Here,” Albert breathed. “Three, for Journal 3. It might be Isaac, I have to go look.”

He pulled the map off the desk, rolling it up and heading for the stairs. Stanley was right behind him.

“Hey, wait, kid!”

“Why?” Albert asked, going to the elevator and pressing the button to open the doors, tapping his foot.

“You’re not going by yourself,” Stanley told him, stepping in front of the doors as they opened.

“Why _not_?”

“Because you’re a _kid_ and you’re my nephew? I guess?” Stanley rubbed at his eyes, sighing. “I’m not letting you go out there alone.”

Albert huffed. “Then are you going to come with me?”

“Yep,” Stanley said, and Albert blinked as he stepped into the elevator, motioning for him to follow. “You wanna take the golf cart or the car?”

Stanley seemed eager to help him, but what if it was a trap? If he was really Ford’s brother, could he be trusted? Ford had never mentioned him, so what if he was lying? What if he was feigning his shock at seeing Albert?

Ford had told him to trust no one.

Looking at Stanley, it was hard to believe that he could be lying about being Ford’s twin. And he had seemed genuinely upset when he mentioned Ford being _gone_ , whatever he meant by that. He was frowning now, his foot bouncing up and down on the floor of the elevator, his fingers drumming against the panel to select which floor to get off at.

Fiddleford had once told him to take everything that Ford taught him that wasn’t about science and math with a grain of salt.

Albert stepped into the elevator. “The car.”

 

* * *

 

 

Stan was really happy that Albert chose the car.

“Well, shi-“ Stan cleared his throat as he stared out the window. “I mean, shoot. It’s snowing.”

“Snow?” the kid asked, stepping from behind the vending machine after him. “What month- _oh my god_.”

“It’s December, wh-“

“What did you _do_ to the cabin?”

Stan turned to see Albert standing in the middle of the gift shop, looking around with an expression of stark horror. He turned to Stan, his expression shifting into a heated glare. “What did you _do_?”

Stan shrugged, eyeing the kid’s outfit (a thin, kind of baggy button down and jeans) and walking over to the clothes racks. “Had to pay the bills somehow. You need something warmer to wear, what’s your size?”

“I don’t need more clothes. Can we just go?”

“At least take a jacket,” Stan pressed, grabbing a red one with the Mystery Shack™ logo on it. It was probably a little big for him, but it would work. “Here. Put it on. I’m gonna go grab mine, and then we can head out.”

The kid snatched the jacket from him and slipped it on with a huff. Stan rolled his eyes and went through the employees only door to grab his jacket from the living room.

That was when the freak out started to catch up to him.

So, Ford had had kids. Kids that turned into journals. Or journals that turned into kids? Either way, there was now a kid who claimed to be Ford’s standing in his gift shop, and the kid claimed that there were more kids that they had to go rescue from what looked to be a damn blizzard getting ready to roll through.

There was a lot that he and Ford should have talked about, that day.

He took a deep breath. This was just another weird Gravity Falls thing. He’d dealt with countless weird things before, he could handle this.

He could handle this.

Pushing his freak out to the back of his mind, he shrugged his jacket on, grabbing his keys and heading back into the gift shop. The kid was standing by the door, still looking around with disgust.

“You turned it into a _tourist trap_ ,” Albert said accusingly, his mouth drawn into a frown.

“Like I said, had to pay the bills.” Stan held up the keys. “Ready?”

The kid made a noise not unlike a cat being strangled as he saw the outside of the Shack, but didn’t comment again. Stan unlocked the car and he climbed into the passenger seat, and Stan made quick work of turning on the heat and using the wipers to get the snow off of the windshield.

The drive to the church was silent, an awkward tension hanging between them. Albert kept starting to say something and then abandoning it, turning to look out the window. Stan had a million questions he wanted to ask but was afraid to push the kid on. Luckily, the drive was only a few minutes long, and they were pulling up to the church before they knew it.

The church was old and run down, the walls falling apart and the roof caving in. Most of the furniture had been stolen a long time ago, but there were still a few chairs scattered around. The snow falling on it definitely wasn’t helping, and Stan could already see which parts of the roof would probably give out that winter.

Albert was out of the car in a flash, running towards the decrepit building. Stan sighed and followed him, wrapping his jacket more tightly around himself, his arm protesting from his earlier fall.

He really hoped the thing wouldn’t cave in while they were inside.

 

* * *

 

 

Albert ran for the church. “Isaac! Isaac, are you there?”

There was no response. He shoved open one of the stiff doors, stepping inside. He scanned the room, finding various possible hiding spots that could fit a book, but not a boy. Huffing, he started to move the debris that laid around the sanctuary, hoping Isaac had hidden somewhere.

“Isaac, are you here?”

Stanley stepped in after him, his eyes bouncing around the room. Albert ignored him as he headed for the back of the church, dropping down to look under a moldy pew.

“Kid,” Stanley called. Albert sat up on his knees, looking over at him. “C’mere, look at this.”

Albert walked over. Stanley was crouched next to a sizable hole in the wall, pointing at a collapsed bookshelf a few feet away. “I was just here a few months ago. As far as I can tell, that’s new. Could he have-“

Albert saw what Stanley was trying to say before he finished his sentence, and he ducked through the hole, trying his best to see through the now-heavy snow. “Isaac! Isaac!”

With a grunt, Stanley crawled through after him. “Hey, don’t go running off.”

Albert ignored him, careful not to slip of the snow as he walked forward. “Isaac! Are you there? Isaac!”

They both headed further into the woods, Stanley eventually joining him in calling for Isaac.

After only a few minutes, Albert was starting to rethink the church. Maybe the III on the map hadn’t meant anything. Albert was sure that Isaac couldn’t have gotten this far. Albert was also freezing, now, and would enjoy the chance to regroup and warm up. He stopped, turning to tell Stanley that they should head back to the car.

He ended up not saying anything. He turned just in time to watch Stanley, quite a few feet behind him, trip and fall flat on his face. The man groaned, pulling himself up and turning to see what he’d tripped over.

“Albert!” he yelled, and Albert was beside him in a flash.

“What? Did you find something? Is-“

Stanley pulled a young boy up into a sitting position. He had fluffy hair the same color as Albert’s, and freckles scattered across his face. His eyes were half open as he looked at them, shivering, snow clinging to the t-shirt and shorts he was dressed in.

_Isaac_. Albert could have cried at the sight of him.

Stanley made quick work of slipping off his jacket and wrapping Isaac in it, picking him up and carrying him bridal style as he started back in the direction they’d come from. Albert followed along, falling into step with Stanley.

“Isaac, are you okay?” he asked, biting his lip. “Can you hear me?”

Isaac coughed. “A-Al? Why was I in the church? Why is it- why is it so cold?”

“Don’t worry about it for now,” Stanley answered before Albert could. “You just focus on getting warm.”

They were back at the car in record time, Albert helping Stanley get Isaac into the backseat. Albert crawled in with him, letting Isaac lean on him as Stan started the car and the heat.

“Where’s Nik?” Isaac asked, nestling his head into Albert’s shoulder. Albert sighed.

“I don’t know. We’ll find him.”

Isaac fell asleep soon after that. When they got back to the cabin, Stanley gently lifted him out of the car, carrying him inside.

“He doesn’t feel like he has a fever,” Stanley told him as he laid him down on the armchair. “He couldn’t of been out there for long, right? Less than an hour?”

Albert nodded. He glanced around the living room, scoffing at the dinosaur skull Stanley was using as an end table. That had been one of Ford’s favorite discoveries. “I think he’ll be okay. Can we talk about some of the redecorating you’ve done?”

“Like I keep saying, I live here now,” Stanley shrugged. “And are there not-“

Stanley didn’t get to finish. The back door swung open, bouncing against the wall, and a voice cut sharply across the living room.

“So did Ford lose his freaking mind _again_ , or what? You’d think one meltdown would be enough, but-“

Nik stopped short in the doorway to the living room, choking on his words.

Albert’s concern was washed away with annoyance as he gave his brother an unimpressed stare. “A truly stellar entrance, _Nikola_.”

 

* * *

 

 

Stan just barely managed to not have a heart attack.

He had to hand it to the kid- he knew how to make a dramatic entrance. He was frozen in the doorway, and Stan glanced over him, checking for injuries or whatever.

He was about as tall as Albert, with the same red hair, though his was less fluffy than his brothers- it was shorter, most of the hair cut just short enough that it didn’t get wavy. He stared at Stan with wide eyes, glancing at Albert and Isaac, who had startled awake at the commotion and was now sitting up, looking sleepily around.

“Well,” Nik finally said. “You’re not Ford, are you?”

It felt weird to introduce himself as _himself_ for a second time that day. “Nope, I’m Stanley. His twin brother. Now, would someone like to finally explain what the f- the heck is happening? And why some books just turned into a bunch of kids?”

Albert and Nik gave each other a look. Nik nodded, and Albert sighed, turning back to Stan. “We’re Experiment #315. Ford found an old text with a ritual inside of it that claimed it could give animate powers to inanimate objects. After testing it extensively-“

“Sure,” Nik scoffed.

Albert ignored him. “- he attempted to use it on his original journals. His intention was to give the journals the power to read themselves aloud, and to be able to write in themselves. Instead, the journals turned into us.”

Stan tried to wrap his head around it. The reasonable part of his brain was already dismissing it- turning a book into a living, breathing child? It was weird, and impossible, and probably sacrilegious.

But this was Gravity Falls. And just about everything in Gravity Falls was weird, impossible, and probably sacrilegious.

So some books had been turned into kids. He had witnessed it himself, just a few moments earlier.

Wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened to him, in this town.

“Okay,” Stan said. “Okay. So, Ford just- did he just start raising you, then?”

Albert nodded.

“Not at first,” Nik said. Albert glared at him. “He kept us in a cage for a while.”

“For a few days,” Albert argued. “He didn’t realize that we were _real_ until then.”

“Also around when he realized he had no clue how to turn us back.”

“Shut up, _Nikola_.”

“Hey,” Stan said. “Cut the fighting, all right? Argue all you want later, when I understand all of this sh- this stuff.”

Nik rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

Albert sent him a glare. “Anyway, it _might_ have taken him a couple of days to figure out that we were real and not just illusions of the spell. But after that, he named us, and he taught us, and-“

“And he kept us locked up inside of his house and didn’t let us go outside,” Nik interrupted again. “We lived a charmed life. Where is the bastard now?”

Albert looked away, crossing his arms. Stan frowned. “Uh, language? And he’s- Ford’s gone. Been gone for twenty years.”

Nik blinked. “Oh, really? So, what, he’s dead?”

Albert and Isaac both turned to stare holes into Stan, Albert looking nauseous and Isaac looking panicked.

Stan’s heart skipped a beat. “I- no? Maybe? I don’t- it’s a long story.”

“We have time,” Albert said.

“I hope he really _did_ get his eyes ripped out,” Nik spit.

Isaac started crying. Nik’s eyes widened before he turned away, staring at the floor. Albert took a step forward, murderous intent written all over his face, but Stan grabbed him before he could get to his brother.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Stan said, jumping back as Albert smacked at his hands. “Let’s all calm down, okay? Fight each other later, when I’m not around.”

Albert huffed, stomping over to the table on the other side of the room, crossing his arms as he sat in one of the chairs. “Just tell us what happened.”

They were all looking at him, now. Isaac was still crying. Stan wanted to tell them what had happened- they deserved to know. But as he opened his mouth to start to tell the story, he hesitated.

He hadn’t told this to anyone. Ever. He didn’t know where to start. With that night that Filbrick had thrown him out of the house? With stories from his time on the run? He dismissed those two options immediately. These were kids, and they weren’t interested in his sob story. They wanted to know what had happened to their father.

(Or was it their creator? The mad scientist who had experimented with them? Stan didn’t know anymore, and he got the sense that he shouldn’t ask what the kids saw Ford as. Sensitive subjects and whatnot.)

“We didn’t talk much,” he eventually said. He looked anywhere but at their faces. “Something happened, when we were kids, and I- we grew apart. Didn’t see much of each other for about ten years. Which I guess explains why he never mentioned me.”

Nik nodded, joining Isaac on the armchair. “Makes sense. Stop crying, dummy, it’s okay. I didn’t mean it.”

“He sent me a postcard, one day,” Stan continued, running a hand through his hair. “I was out in New Mexico- I don’t even know how he got my address. But it was a postcard from Gravity Falls, from Ford, asking me for help. So I drove up, and he greeted me with a crossbow to the face and started yelling about people stealing his eyes or something? I don’t know. He was acting really crazy.”

“He was like that before he turned us back, too,” Albert spoke up, frowning. “He was very paranoid, and irrational, sometimes-“

“More like batshit crazy,” Nik snorted.

“ _Nikola_ -“

“All right,” Stan said. “Maybe watch your language? Are you old enough to curse? I don’t think you are. Anyway, I get here and he’s all crazy, acting like he has something coming after him, and he takes me down to his basement and shows me the portal. Then he handed me Journal 1- the real book, I guess? He told me to take it to the other side of the planet. We, uh, we got into a bit of a fight about it.”

Nik gasped. “Did you _kill him_?”

“ _No_ ,” Stan said quickly, cutting off Isaac’s gasp of horror. “I would never- that’s not what happened. We bumped into some stuff and turned on the portal, and Ford kinda got- he got sucked inside. And then the thing broke, and I- I’ve been here ever since, trying to fix it. So I can bring him back.”

Isaac was still crying. “But- he’s not dead?”

Stan walked over and knelt in front of him. He didn’t know what kind of comfort he could provide here- he was practically a stranger, and he’d just delivered what was probably the worst news in the world for this kid. But he’d never liked seeing kids upset, and he had to do _something_.

“I can’t tell you that I know the answer to that question,” he said softly. “But if there’s one thing I know about Ford, it’s that he’s strong. He knows how to- to adapt, you know? And I have faith that he’s doing all right for himself, wherever he’s ended up.”

Isaac sniffed, and then he launched himself away from Nikola and threw his arms around Stan’s neck. Nikola’s eyes widened, a hand reaching out for his brother, and Albert stood, worry written all over his face. Isaac continued to sob, burying his head into Stan’s shoulder.

For a moment, he froze. Then he slowly wrapped his arms around the boy, patting him on the back.

“He’s strong,” Isaac said, sniffling, and for a second Stan thought of all the snot that was probably getting on his jacket.

Albert and Nik shared a look, and then they both relaxed, Nik leaning back into the armchair and Albert sitting back down.

“Yeah,” Stan sighed. “Yeah, he is.”

 

* * *

 

 

Shortly after their nice moment in the living room, Isaac started complaining that he was hungry. Stan, having very few groceries in the house, had turned to the next best option: the 24-hour pizza delivery place in town.

They had migrated to the kitchen, eating off paper plates in what had turned into a tense silence, which was only occasionally broken by Isaac asking Stan questions.

“Why did you call it the Mystery Shack?”

Stan shrugged. “I just came up with it, I guess. And it was better than the Murder Hut."

Nikola finally looked up from his pizza, a grin stretching across his face. “You called it the _Murder_ _Hut_?”

“Not for long,” Stan defended. “A couple months at the most. It wasn’t very marketable.”

“The Murder Hut sounds scary,” Isaac said. He slipped out of his chair, walking back towards the living room. “I’m full. I’m going to sleep now.”

Stan glanced at the clock above the door. “Jesus, it’s one in the morning. I think we should all get some sleep. Talk more about all of this in the morning.”

Albert was leaned back in his seat, watching as Isaac disappeared into the living room. As soon as the younger boy was gone, he turned to Nik, angrily whispering, “I can’t believe you’d go out of your way to upset him like that.”

Nik rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean to. I was just joking around.”

“You don’t joke around about hoping people were dead, _Nikola_.”

“Sorry that not all of us worshipped him, _Albert_ , and I didn’t say-”

“Hey,” Stan said, but the two ignored him.

“I did not _worship_ him,” Albert said, standing and sending his chair scraping across the floor. “I _respected_ him. Sorry that not all of us hated him too much to see reason.”

Nik stood, too, his expression changing into something stricken. “I didn’t hate him. He hated me!”

And then, before Stan could do anything, Nik launched himself at his brother, sending them both crashing to the floor.

“Hey!” Stan yelled this time, getting up and running around the table. Nik had punched Albert in the face, and Albert had grabbed a fistful of his hair, tugging. “Break it up!”

When Nik reared back for another punch, Stan grabbed him around the middle and pulled him away, lifting him into the air. “I told you to knock it off!”

“I didn’t hate him,” Nik repeated as Stan set him back down on his feet.

“I believe you, just, just don’t go punching people about it,” Stan huffed. “You okay?”

Albert got to his feet, glaring at Nik. “Just _fine_.”

“Good, then I’m going to bed.” Stan stretched, heading for the kitchen door. “You two should head to bed, too. We’ll find you somewhere to sleep.”

“I’ve been asleep for twenty years,” Nik said, a whine seeping into his voice.

Stan sighed. “Do whatever you want, then, as long as it doesn’t wake me up until noon tomorrow.”

He walked to the stairs, stopping at the bottom and turning back to look at them. Nik still looked ready to attack. “And no more fighting until at least the morning, you hear?”

“Sure,” they both replied, and Stan couldn’t tell if either of them meant it. He went upstairs anyway, going to his room and closing the door behind him.

He leaned against the door, putting his head in his hands.

Ford had books that turned into kids. Ford had turned those kids back into books, for some reason, and hadn’t bothered to tell him anything about those book-kids. Why? Why had he turned them back? Why hadn’t he mentioned them? Why did Nik hold such a passionate dislike for him?

Had Ford mistreated them?

His stomach turned at the thought.

Ford wouldn’t. Or would he? Stan didn’t know anymore. The way that Nik had said that Ford hated him- Albert’s confirmation that Ford had kept them in a _cage_ \- the way Albert had rattled off that experiment number- what was he supposed to think?

He sighed, walking over to the bed and falling into it.

They would need to talk more, in the morning. When they hadn’t just been turned back into kids, and hadn’t just been given the worst news in their life. When they weren’t at each other’s throats.

Thinking about it, Stan wasn’t all that sure he should’ve left them alone together.

“Shit,” he muttered, swinging himself out of bed. He walked back down the stairs, expecting to walk into another argument, but instead stopped at the bottom, listening to the whispers that drifted out from the living room.

“What kind of cartoon is this?” Albert’s hushed voice asked. The light of the TV danced across the walls, and Stan could just barely hear the _Pokémon_ theme song playing.

“I don’t know,” Nik’s voice said. “Don’t change it! It looks cool.”

“Quiet! You’ll wake up Isaac.”

“He could sleep through a tornado, we’re not gonna wake him up.”

“Whatever,” Albert huffed. Stan heard him yawn, and then, after a few moments, he heard Nik yawn, too.

He waited there, holding his breath, for a few more minutes. And then he peeked around the edge of the door.

Isaac was passed out in the armchair, the blanket that Stan had had draped over the back of the chair wrapped around him. Nik and Albert sat in front of it on the floor, Albert leaning on Nik’s shoulder as they both fought to stay awake.

Stan headed back upstairs.

They’d probably be okay. They’d figure it out in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of something that I posted on tumblr a few years ago! You could read the original, I guess, but I'm not sure why you would want to. You can find me there at rachealsfandoms, and my writing blog at rachealswriting.


End file.
